Album: Red Album
Year: 2007
Rating: 86/100
After their first two EPs garnered a significant amount of positive attention (not to mention a significant amount of comparisons to bands like Neurosis and Mastodon), Baroness have given us their first full length album. Like their contemporaries in the form of Kylesa and Mastodon, Baroness focus primarily on hypnotic guitar lines, swathed in multiple different effects, odd time signatures and powerful drumming, topped off with John Dyer Baizley's cheerful and melodious bellow.
"Rays on Pinion" opens the album brightly enough to start, even though it drags ever so slightly towards the end. "The Birthing", however, brings the level back up and smashes the listener in the face right from the start, continuing to do so as the song progresses. When Baroness get the balance between hazy and ethereal and out and out heavy correct, however, then it sounds superb, as demonstrated on "Aleph" and "Wailing Wintry Wind". "Cockroach En Fleur" throws a curveball in the mix, taking the form of a deftly fingerpicked acoustic number, while "Teeth of a Cogwheel" lives up to its title by churning away, while "O'Appalachia" smashes the listener in the face for a second time.
"Red Album" is slightly easier on the ear than its EP predecessors, but is still excellent nonetheless. It draws for a multiple of different styles, refusing to adhere to just one, and is atmospheric and hypnotic without being suckered into being the latter's evil twin, boring. Highly recommended.
Track list
- Rays On Pinion
- The Birthing
- Isak
- Wailing Wintry Wind
- Cockroach En Fleur
- Wanderlust
- Aleph
- Teeth of a Cogwheel
- O'Appalachia
- Grad
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